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December 14th, 2012, 09:23 GMT · By

New Windows Boss Explains Why You Don’t Need a Start Button

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The Start button is deemed one of the most popular features of the
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There’s no doubt that Windows 8’s Start Screen is the most controversial feature of the new operating system, but Microsoft has absolutely no intention to bring back the traditional Start button.

And users don’t really need it, Julie Larson-Green suggested in an interview with MIT Technology Review. She said the Start Screen is the perfect “dashboard” for users to quickly access the content they need the most on their computers.

“With Windows 8, all the different things that you might want to do are there at a glance with the Live Tiles. Instead of having to find many little rocks to look underneath, you see a kind of dashboard of everything that’s going on and everything you care about all at once. It puts you closer to what you’re trying to get done,” she explained.

Company CEO Steve Ballmer said in October that users don’t need the traditional Windows feature because “they have a whole screen as a Start button.”

In addition, Steven Sinofsky, the former Windows boss, said during the official Windows 8 launch event that the Start Screen is facing the same fate as the Start button: it was heavily criticized at first, but it’s now one of the features you can’t live without.

So it’s all just a matter of time until everybody gets used to it, Sinofsky explained.

“You know, as familiar and productive as Windows 7 is for customers today, the world that led to Windows 7 began back in the early 1990s when familiar concepts like the Start menu were first conceived. Familiar today, but completely new when it was first released. That technology world was so very different than the world we experience each and every day,” he added.

Sinofsky is also believed to be the one who insisted for a Start Screen, sources familiar with the matter have hinted soon after his departure from Microsoft.


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READER COMMENTS:


Comment #1 by: Wolfram on 14 Dec 2012, 10:53 UTC reply to this comment

I could explain, to Microsoft, why most users do not need Windows 8 at all (with, or without the Start button). But, it would be like talking alone in a desert.

In what concerns the absence of the Start button, what can I say? Because Windows 8 it is, in its entirety, a "Stop button" (for Microsoft), why should they add a "Start button"?! Windows Eight = Windows End.

Comment #1.1 by: fingers on 17 Dec 2012, 04:28 GMT

The customer wants the option of a start button. Microsoft knows this but in their infinite superiority decides to tell the customer what they want. I know where you can find a machine that functions much more like Windows. At the Mac store. Your metro is great if you have a touch screen and time to learn a new interface. x loyal Windows fan.

Comment #1.2 by: bLahapple on 19 Dec 2012, 10:52 GMT

But it is only in a desert that you find an Oasis, true? What CAN you explain to Microsoft? Is it really a stop button for Microsoft, hmm? I don't think so. The sheeple around the world want to upgrade to everything and anything. Whether it's upgrading from the iPhone 4 to the iphone 5 and from the 5th to the 36th and....you get where we're going with this. However, an idiot will upgrade to the level of a cretin. 6 out of 10 Windows 7 users will want to upgrade to Windows 8, because they have to.


Comment #2 by: Pluizebol on 14 Dec 2012, 13:17 UTC reply to this comment

There will be NO WINDOWS 8 on my machines for as long as the following features are not available again in the Desktop Interface:
1. Start menu
2. Start button
3. Aero
4. Windows 7 chrome
5. Windows 7 eye candy
6. The possibility to set the desktop interface as my default interface.

MS may tell again and again what they want me to use (whether I like it or not).
I hate the Metro Start Screen and I will NEVER use it, period !


Comment #3 by: Str8A on 15 Dec 2012, 07:38 UTC reply to this comment

She's the weak link and has been destroying Windows!!!! This piece of * called "W8"does not deserve the Windows label!!

In my opinion the company that will benefit the most from this idiotic move is Apple as many users will move to Mac.


Comment #4 by: larry on 26 Dec 2012, 21:13 UTC reply to this comment

have it your way, and go out of business.

marketing not in touch with customers.

Just like Obama....wake up before it's tooo late.

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